The project was conceived in 1999 by Jamie Byng, owner of Canongate, and the first three titles in the series were published on 21 October 2005.
Also, the first title in the series, Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth, was published the same day in 33 countries and 28 languages, in what The Washington Post called "the biggest simultaneous publication ever".
Installments in the series are also forthcoming from the authors A. S. Byatt,[1] Chinua Achebe and Natsuo Kirino.
2009 saw the publication of Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugrešić and The Hurricane Party by Klas Östergren.
Orphans of Eldorado by Milton Hatoum and The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman were published in 2010.